


Five Little Lies

by Kierkegarden



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Backstory, Drabble, Headcanon, Legilimency, M/M, Obscurial, Pretentious twelve year old Gellert discusses architecture, Sacrilege
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-09-08 02:06:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8826082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kierkegarden/pseuds/Kierkegarden
Summary: Five little drabbles about Gellert's origin and motive, as I imagine it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Based largely off the head-canons of my good friend Abbie and our late night Skype conversations for the past three years.  
> These are, of course, not set in stone and will most likely be proven non-canonical by the coming movies.  
> These are, admittedly, hastily written and kind of serve as forum for my thoughts on the character.  
> These do have a seemingly anti-Catholicism feel but do not represent my thoughts on the religion.

**Vienna, Austria-Hungary, 1890**

It was nearing evening and they stood with umbrellas in the Naschmarkt in Vienna. Gellert’s mother had instructed that he use a muggle umbrella and again, she wore the painted face of a stranger. They always hid in plain sight in Vienna and though he was only eight, Gellert felt guilty for it. 

“Buy us some bread, Gellert.” His mother handed him a few crumpled  _ krone _ banknotes - a sort of paper muggle coinage. She always looked sad. Gellert wanted to tell her that she didn’t have to do this. 

He nodded and scampered to the baker’s stall. 

It had been less than a year since they had moved from Sopron, less than a year since Gellert’s father had denounced them as witches and banished them from the manor. It felt like a lifetime.

 

**Vienna, Austria-Hungary, 1892**

“We need to get you out of here, Gellert.” His mother stood over his bed, white knuckles clenching a large black book. She swayed slightly, placing her other hand on his fevered cheek, “No muggle medicine will save you.”

“You told me to never say that word. There are no witches. There is only Jesus Christ and his path to righteousness,” his voice had a snide tone, even in its frailty. Gellert knew what he was. He had always known. 

“Shut up, boy. Shut up! I wish I had never birthed you. I was happy, Gellert, I was --”

“You were a liar. You are a liar.” the young boy spat, “You made me a liar and now I’m dying.”

His mother sank to her knees by his bedside and started to sob. “You were always such a good boy. Where is God now? Where is he in all of our misery?”

“God is magic,” Gellert tried to sit up in his bed but could hardly move. He felt chills coming on again as he tried to burrow deeper beneath his blanket, “do you remember what magic is?”

The woman pushed a ringlet from her brow and brought the book to his eye level, opening a marked page, “Aye, I remember magic. Magic is what’s going to kill you.”

Gellert’s half-closed eyes fell with horror upon the illustration: a looming black mass above a half demolished town. The title, with gold-leaf detailing around the first letter:  _ The Obscurial. _

 

**Sopron, Austria-Hungary, 1894**

It had been five years since Gellert had seen his father. The boy had grown significantly and bore the handsome face of an erote, at the age of twelve. He had seen too many things as a vagabond and he felt himself old before his time.

In the past year, he had found a home in an old wizard’s pub on the outskirts of Budapest. He cleaned, he sang, and he gained the heart of the owner and his wife.

They had agreed to fund his education at Durmstrang, for they bore no children but a squib. Gellert was to leave in a month’s time. He promised he would be back before then to say goodbye and thank you, but first he needed to travel to Sopron. They smiled at the stubborn boy who insisted that he had unfinished business, but sent him nevertheless.

Here Gellert stood, in the city where he was born, staring at the intricate church front where his father was undoubtedly in Mass. Gellert slunk against the wall and started to daydream. He imagined the grizzled blond man unsuspecting, preparing to enjoy his midsummer day. Perhaps he thought he would spend his night gambling with his friends or with a mistress or at the park.

Gellert imagined himself approaching the man coyly and muttering in muddled German, “Hello sir, would you care to show a good foreign boy your church?”

His father would not even recognize him. 

“What a lovely interior, well preserved baroque is so rare” he’d watch his father hold back a chuckle at his youthful appreciation for the architecture as he pulled out his wand, “ _ Petrificus totalus _ ”

“They call it the Goat Church, do they?” he’d pace a bit as his father gasped in fear, “I  _ do _ remember now. I’m not a foreigner at all, you see. You and I know each other quite well. I was your son once. Do you remember?”

He’d pause and stand over the man as threateningly as a twelve year old boy could. “Crucio,” the ghost of a smile would grace his lips, “ _ crucio _ .”

Gellert smiled to himself as he watched as muggles piled out of the church in their fancy clothes. He carefully noted every person’s face until the last remaining stragglers wandered onwards into the street. His father was not among them. 

Hastily, Gellert approached an older man from the congregation whose overcoat would cost a month’s bar wages.

“Excuse me, sir,” Gellert said politely, “Is Heinrich Grindelwald in attendance? I’m his...nephew.”

The man looked puzzled and then sympathetic. “Heinrich Grindelwald has passed away. He died over a year ago. I’m so sorry that nobody told you.”

Revenge is a dish best served cold. The heat that summer was ever rising. 

 

 

**Knivskjellodden, Norway, 1899**

“You have no remaining family?”

Gellert gritted his teeth, “I don’t know,  _ sir _ . I’m not a master of genealogy, only of dark magic. My father is a dead muggle and I haven’t talked to my mother since I was a child near death, due to her neglect.”

Gellert was not intimidated by the headmaster’s hostile glare. He had used him, just like he had used his students, to climb to the top and secure an army.  

“What about the man who funds your tuition? Can you not go to him?” 

“He is not my father and I will not be returning to Austria-Hungary,” the young man scoffed, “I have read into the legality. You cannot force me to return to a man who is not my kin.”

The headmaster poured over a tome that Gellert had read months ago. Human relations were a mixture of strategy and manipulation. Gellert was five steps ahead.

“What about your grandmother on your mother’s side?”

“Dead.” Gellert examined his fingernails.

“And her sister in the British Isles?”

“Dead.”

Headmaster Bösanberer smirked. “Good try, Gellert, but if Bathilda Bagshot was dead the world would be mourning.”

“Mrs. Bagshot has a teaching job at Hogwarts. She is not equipped to look after such a wild and dangerous man as myself.”

Gellert flashed his signature wild and carefree smile. 

“She would only need to do so until the summer ends. You will be seventeen then, and your own...liability.”

Gellert’s smile faded, “What if she refuses?”

The headmaster unseated himself and slowly gathered his coat from the back of his chair. “We will cross that bridge when we get there, Mr. Grindelwald. Please go to your quarters and occupy yourself. Remember, you are only to leave for meals until we figure out what to do with you.”

 

**Godric’s Hollow, Great Britain, 1899** **  
**

Forcing Gellert to live with Bathilda Bagshot was the best thing that Headmaster    
Bösanberer had ever done for him, albeit unknowingly. Bagshot was surprisingly uninvolved with him, keeping to herself most of the time. In the mornings, she would transfigure a cup of tea into the thick, strong Hungarian coffee that he preferred and then disappear into her office for hours at a time. The real victory in Godric’s Hollow, however, was the expansive Bagshot library and Albus Dumbledore. 

It was a sunny morning in early July and Gellert was in that library with his dearest friend. His smile, a shy almost guilty sliver, warmed Gellert more than the open window. 

“If I didn’t know better, I would think you were putting more time towards reading  _ me _ than this collection of books that I selected,” Albus ventured.

Gellert chuckled and shrugged, “If these books read as easily as you, we would have already found the Hallows.”

Albus had seemed stuffy and closed off when they had first met, but Gellert quickly learned how to play his game. Admittedly, Albus was his equal but his weakness was thinking himself wiser than he was. Gellert had won the game before his companion had figured out a strategy. What Gellert hadn’t expected was Albus breaching his defenses as well.

Albus wrinkled up his nose. “ _ I’m Gellert Grindelwald and I am a calculating and cruel strategist,” _ he mocked in his adorably cultured British accent, _ “I get angry when Albus beats me at wizard’s chess because I think I have him all figured out!” _

Gellert sprawled out on his back on the library floor, resting his head in Albus’s lap. “ _ I’m Albus Dumbledore and I only take my head out of a book to stare at Gellert longingly without saying what it is that I really want.” _

The taller boy laughed at his impersonation, “What do I want then, Gellert? If you have me nailed down so well?”

“Remember Albus, I’m not a legilimens, only a _ calculating and cruel _ strategist”

Albus countered him with a half-lidded gaze, “What do  _ you _ want, Gellert?” he cooed, “Let me see.”

Gellert felt Albus’s presence trying to stare into his mind. He closed his eyes tightly and wrestled himself for a shield. He needed to cover himself, to not expose the twelve year old boy dreaming of torturing his father; to not reveal the battle flags in the shape of the Hallows symbol. To shut away the screaming and the blood and the sick satisfaction of avenging his childhood and Wizard kind. Most of all, to hide the duel thrones on top the world, seating himself and his auburn haired lover. It was a kind of weakness that he knew would be his downfall.

And suddenly, he felt Albus’s lips on his and the strain off of his mind; Albus’s hum of satisfaction as the kiss deepened. There was nothing more real than the dull ache of sitting too long of the library floor and the smell of books and _Albus,_ as Gellert realized what he wanted; and it was not a lie.

 


End file.
